What about the next Ice Age, a reader complains

A reader writes:
I just read your article "Yelling Fire" where you state that global warming has been a concern for "several generations," quoting articles from '56 and '32. I don't believe that you don't know that the fear du jour in the 1970's was the coming of ICE AGE, caused none other than greenhouse gases (!!). None of my friends seem to remember, somewhat convenietly, but newspaper and magazine archives don't lie. (See "Another Ice Age" in June 24, 1974 Time magazine - among others.) CAN YOU TELL ME HOW IT IS NOT INTELLECTUALLY DISHONEST NOT BRING IT UP? AND WHAT IF OUR "GLOBAL WARMING" HAS INDDED PREVENTED MAJOR GLOBAL COOLING, THUS SAVING CIVILIZATION? Human-friendly temperatures occured only during 5% of the last 700,000 years. What if had persuaded the governments to do everything to WARM the planet? You're part of a shameless propaganda machine, Mr. Revkin.

Normally I don't respond to readers who are so deep-set in their opinions that they clearly aren't open to the flow of science. but here goes.

First, i have written plenty about ice ages, past and future.
Second, science has marched on since the early 70s and while the ice-age 'news' faded, our understanding of the role of CO2 in warming the earth has only built. There is no IPCC devoted to the coming ice age, nor did the National Academy of Sciences produce a series of reports saying it was a growing concern. In the meantime, even Richard Lindzen endorses the idea that more CO2 will make the world warmer. He just doesn't support the view that it's a calamity. If you'd been following my stories over the years (including the one you complain about), you'd see that I don't endorse that view either. It's a transformation, for better and worse.

The best view of the science is offered by a completely nonjudgmental book, The Discover of Global Warming, which you don't even have to buy. It's all online. Feel free to write again once you've read it. 100 years of science pointing in one direction.
More CO2 = more warming = potential problems.

[Much is made of that spate of stories about the coming Ice Age in the 70's, but little is made of the fact that that mania quickly faded, as did the one over "nuclear winter" once subsequent analysis by Stephen Schneider et al showed it would be a "nuclear autumn" (hardly something to consider if going to nuclear war). But the science underlying human-forced warming has bee far more durable.]
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Andy Revkin has been an environment reporter for The New York Times since 1995. Revkin has traveled to the Artic three times, and he was the first New York Times reporter to file stories and images from the North Pole. He is the author of THE NORTH POLE WAS HERE: Puzzles and Perils at the Top of the World